Life as a potential First Husband is clearly a difficult adjustment for Bill Clinton, who keeps making news by whatever means possible. Most recently, for example, while stumping for wife Hillary in her presidential campaign, the former president appeared in a very British cutaway collar with a Windsor-knotted neck tie – a pointed departure from the conservative business attire he’s worn his entire political career. He’s not the only one. Suddenly the thick tie, whether it’s a fat four-in-hand or the classic or semi-Windsor, is everywhere.

Recently, Jonathan Capehart, a reporter for The Washington Post, appeared on television wearing a cutaway collar and a full Windsor knot. On CNN’s Larry King Live, style guru Steven “Cojo” Cojocaru talked about his battle with kidney disease while wearing a flashy, purple polka-dot tie with an enormous knot. Indeed, given that Carl Bernstein, political commentator and co-author of All The President’s Men, often wears a cutaway collar with a fat tie knot, as do many television news anchors on the BBC and in the US, including CNN’s Anderson Cooper, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann and Fox News’s Shepard Smith, you could say this is a media thing – except Jay-Z and P Diddy also increasingly favour the full Windsor, as does Barack Obama, who sported a hefty tie during the Democratic debates.